A senior Pretoria government official was ”wild, like a tiger” after allegedly beating up his wife in a jealous rage, a witness testified in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday.
Schoolteacher Pumla Mkatali died in her house in Centurion in May 2005 of injuries allegedly sustained in an assault by her husband, department of agriculture director David Linley Sonkosi (40).
Sonkosi pleaded not guilty to his wife’s murder, claiming he had only pushed her once, as a result of which she hit her head against the floor.
However, his wife’s cousin, Zukiswa Ncilata, testified that she witnessed him repeatedly knocking his wife’s body and head against a tiled floor, and heard him repeatedly hitting her with a thick leather belt and threatening to ”beat her up until she died”.
Pathologist Dr Robert Ngude testified that Mkatali’s injuries were consistent with repeated blunt force trauma not only to her head, but also to the rest of her body.
The teacher had a broken jaw, a swollen face, bleeding on the brain, severe bleeding surrounding both eyes and numerous wounds and lacerations on her face and the rest of her body, which were not consistent with her accidentally banging her head on the floor.
”Her injuries were due to severe multiple blows,” Ngude said.
Ncilata, who lived with the couple, said they had had a quiet morning shopping with their children, but an argument ensued later that night because Sonkosi apparently suspected that his wife was seeing someone else after she refused to let him answer her cellphone.
She saw them grabbing at each other’s clothes and Sonkosi pulling his wife’s hair while she tried to fight back. ”He tripped her and she fell down. He then grabbed her by the arms and banged her against the floor. She cried out and woke up the children. They were crying. I took them to their room.”
Mkatali continued crying. ”I could hear she was still being banged against the door. The accused said, ‘Where’s the phone? I want the phone.’ He came into my room and demanded the phone. He was so wild, like a tiger, that I was scared of him.
”I could hear he had found the phone and was demanding the PIN [personal identification number]. It sounded as if he was hitting his wife with something like a belt. He later came to me with the belt in his hand and told me I must tell her to say who she was seeing, because if she did not, he would beat her up until she died.
”I was scared. I went out to her where she was lying on the floor in the passage. I spoke to her, but because of all the blood I could not even look at her. She did not respond. I think she might have been unconscious at that stage.
”He continued hitting her with the belt. I later heard him talking on the phone. He told the person Pumla was no more. He won’t ever see her again,” she said.
She also heard him talking to another person on the phone. ”He asked over and over, ‘Did I really kill her? Did I really kill her?’ He was laughing,” Ncilata said.
She only realised her cousin had been killed after police came to the house.
The trial continues. — Sapa